The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) (french: Autorité canadienne pour les enregistrements Internet ACEI) is the organization that manages the
.ca
.ca is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Canada. The domain name registry that operates it is the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA).
Registrants can register domains at the second level (e.g., ''example.ca'') ...
country code top-level domain
A country code top-level domain (ccTLD) is an Internet top-level domain generally used or reserved for a country, sovereign state, or dependent territory identified with a country code. All ASCII ccTLD identifiers are two letters long, and all ...
(ccTLD) for Canada. Its offices are located at 979 Bank Street in
Ottawa, Ontario
Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...
, Canada. CIRA sets the policies and agendas that support Canada's Internet community and Canada's involvement in international Internet governance. It is a member-driven organization with membership open to all that hold a .ca domain. As of January 2021, there were more than 3 million active .ca domains.
History
Inception
In May 1987, the Information Sciences Institute at the
University of Southern California
, mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it"
, religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist
, established =
, accreditation = WSCUC
, type = Private research university
, academic_affiliations =
, endowment = $8.1 ...
, delegated the
ccTLD
A country code top-level domain (ccTLD) is an Internet top-level domain generally used or reserved for a country, sovereign state, or dependent territory identified with a country code. All ASCII ccTLD identifiers are two letters long, and all ...
.ca to the
University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks among the top thre ...
(UBC) in
Vancouver British Columbia
Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. The ...
, Canada. The university was named the sponsoring delegation for .ca. John Demco, the university's Computing Facilities Manager for the Department of Computer Science, would be its administrator and technical contact. For ten years, under his leadership, a group of volunteers managed the .ca domain.
In 1997, the Canadian Internet community, part of an evolving and rapidly expanding Internet, wanted changes with the administration of the .ca domain. After its annual conference, it formed the Canadian Domain Names Consultation Committee. After public consultations, the committee's recommendation was to form a private-sector, not-for-profit corporation to administer the .ca domain in Canada.
On 30 December 1998, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority was incorporated, and in an 11 March 1999 letter, the
Government of Canada
The government of Canada (french: gouvernement du Canada) is the body responsible for the federal administration of Canada. A constitutional monarchy, the Crown is the corporation sole, assuming distinct roles: the executive, as the ''Crown ...
officially recognized CIRA as the authority to manage the .ca domain for Canada. On 9 May 2000, CIRA, the University of British Columbia, and the Government of Canada entered into an Umbrella Agreement that stated: "''the'' .ca ''domain space should be developed as a key public resource for social and economic development for all Canadians''".
On 10 October 2000,
Industry Canada sent a letter to the
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN ) is an American multistakeholder group and nonprofit organization responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several databases related to the namespaces ...
(ICANN) formally designating CIRA as the Government of Canada's designee for the .ca domain. On 30 November 2000, CIRA sent ICANN a letter requesting a redelegation of the ccTLD .ca domain, effective 1 December 2000. ICANN agreed, and on that day, the ccTLD .ca was redelegated to CIRA, effectively transitioning all .ca domains from
UBC
The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks among the top three ...
to CIRA. By 30 November 2000, it had registered approximately 120,000 .ca domain names.
In March 2001, CIRA initiated the process to elect its first Board of Directors. In May 2001, it opened its offices in Ottawa, Ontario and in June 2001, it held a public election for its initial twelve directors. Its first annual general meeting was held 1 December 2001 in
Toronto, Ontario
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
.
Milestones
In April 2008, CIRA announced that it had surpassed 1 million registered .ca domains. It announced in October 2009, that it would initiate testing for securing the .ca domain space using
DNSSEC
The Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) are a suite of extension specifications by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) for securing data exchanged in the Domain Name System (DNS) in Internet Protocol (IP) networks. The protoc ...
.
In 2010, CIRA stopped accepting new registrations for third-level domains like "example.on.ca", which prior to CIRA's inception, were imposed on registrants wanting a second-level domain like "example.ca"'','' but who could not meet the
domain name registry's (UBC) standing requirements. Also in 2010, it announced it had reached 1.5 million registered .ca domains, and it launched a national consultation called the ''Canadian Internet Forum'', designed to engage Canadians on Internet governance and policy.
In 2012, CIRA announced it had already reached 2 million .ca registered domains. That year it launched
Internationalized Domain Names
An internationalized domain name (IDN) is an Internet domain name that contains at least one label displayed in software applications, in whole or in part, in non-latin script or alphabet, such as Arabic, Bengali, Chinese ( Mandarin, simplifie ...
(IDNs). In 2014, CIRA started a ''Community Investment Program'', and in 2015, launched the ''Internet Performance Test'' initiative.
Additional activities
Security
In September 2012, CIRA held a
DNSSEC
The Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) are a suite of extension specifications by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) for securing data exchanged in the Domain Name System (DNS) in Internet Protocol (IP) networks. The protoc ...
key signing ceremony, and published its first signed .ca
zone file
A Domain Name System (DNS) zone file is a text file that describes a DNS zone. A DNS zone is a subset, often a single domain, of the hierarchical domain name structure of the DNS. The zone file contains mappings between domain names and IP add ...
in January 2013. In 2014, it launched its D-Zone DNS firewall and introduced
Anycast
Anycast is a network addressing and routing methodology in which a single destination IP address is shared by devices (generally servers) in multiple locations. Routers direct packets addressed to this destination to the location nearest the sen ...
DNS. A year after its launch, D-Zone was protecting 800,000 users from malware, ransomware and other cyber-attacks in schools, hospitals, municipalities and small businesses across Canada. In June 2016 it announced delivering a
white-label Anycast version of D-Zone. In June 2018, CIRA announced a partnership with the
Canadian Centre for Child Protection
Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P; french: Centre canadien de protection de l'enfance) is a Canadian registered charitable organization dedicated to the personal safety of all children. More specifically, its goal is to reduce the victim ...
, safeguarding K-12 schools by incorporating data from its ''Project Arachnid'' into its D-Zone platform.
Fury
In July 2016, CIRA announced it would be offering its back-end registry service called ''FURY'', to
gTLDs and
ccTLDs
A country code top-level domain (ccTLD) is an Internet top-level domain generally used or reserved for a country, sovereign state, or dependent territory identified with a country code. All ASCII ccTLD identifiers are two letters long, and all t ...
around the world. Its first gTLD was
.kiwi
.kiwi is an Internet generic top-level domain with emphasis on New Zealand. It employs the colloquial term ''kiwi'', used to refer to New Zealanders. It is the first, and presently only, New Zealand-specific top level domain name approved by ...
in October 2016.
The first ccTLD would be
.sx
.sx is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) in the Domain Name System of the Internet for Sint Maarten.
Sint Maarten became an autonomous country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands on October 10, 2010. On December 15, 2010, the ISO 3166 Ma ...
which went live on ''FURY'' in November 2017. In 2019, its second and largest ccTLD .ca was added to the platform, and later it added gTLD
.mls.
Controversy
In March 2006, Clyde Beattie, former chair of the CIRA Board of Directors and Bernard Turcotte, former President and CEO of CIRA sent an open letter to ICANN expressing concerns on ICANN's "accountability", "transparency", and "fair processes".
CIRA has itself invited concerns and controversy by changing the make-up of its Board of Directors, and by removing the reference to "registration" from a clause in its letters patent, allowing it to now go beyond its original mandate by venturing into more lucrative commercial endeavours.
In 2014, Mark Jeftovic, a former CIRA director, and co-founder of
easyDNS Technologies Inc, an accredited ICANN
domain name registrar, and CIRA certified, sent an open letter to Canada's Industry Minister, the Honorable
James Moore. In his letter, he expressed his concerns about CIRA entering the business of managed
DNS, while having a monopoly to operate the ccTLD .ca registry. He proposed the registry be opened to a competitive bidding process, in order to operate it under a fixed three to five-year term.
Governance
The CIRA board is composed of twelve elected directors and currently, three non-voting board advisors. The board members are elected annually by CIRA members through an online process.
Board of Directors
The current Board of Directors as of November 2022:
* Jill Kolwalchuck – Chair, Board of Directors
* Andrew Escobar – Vice-Chair
* Liza Aboud – Director
* Colleen Arnold – Director
* Gwen Beauchemin – Co-Chair, Community Investment Committee
* Don Bowman, Chair – Services Strategy Committee
* Anne Butler, Chair – Compensation and Review Committee
* Eric Hill, Chair – Governance Committee
* Matthew Gamble – Director
* Alourdes Sully – Chair, Finance, Audit, Investment and Risk Management Committee
* Samantha, Ventresca – Co-Chair, Community Investment Committee
* Michael Zahra – Director
Board Advisors
The current Board Advisors as of November 2022:
* Byron Holland – Board Advisor, President, CEO
* John Demco – Board Advisor
* Charles Noir – Board Advisor, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada
Leadership Team
The current Leadership Team as of November 2022:
* Byron Holland – President and CEO
* Sanita Alias – Vice-president, People, Culture & Brand
* Adam Eisner – General Manager, Registry Services
* Marc Fares – General Manager, .CA
* John Furguson – General Manager, Cybersecurity and DNS Services
* Jane Fulford – Chief Operating Office
* Jacques Latour – Chief Technology and Security Officer
* Tanya O'Callaghan – Vice-president, Community Investment, Policy and Advocacy
See also
*
.ca
.ca is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Canada. The domain name registry that operates it is the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA).
Registrants can register domains at the second level (e.g., ''example.ca'') ...
*
.gc.ca
.gc.ca is a privately held second-level domain in the .ca top-level domain. It is used by the Government of Canada and operated by Government Telecommunications and Informatics Services, which holds all third level domains under the .gc.ca bann ...
References
External links
*
List of .ca registrars.ca whois
{{WebManTools
Internet governance organizations
Internet in Canada
Domain name registries